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REVIEW article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Digital Public Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1461422

A Rapid Review of Digital Approaches for the Participatory Development of Health-Related Interventions

Provisionally accepted
Friederike Doerwald Friederike Doerwald 1,2Imke Stalling Imke Stalling 1Carina Recke Carina Recke 1Heide Busse Heide Busse 2,3Rehana Shrestha Rehana Shrestha 2,4Stefan Rach Stefan Rach 2,3Karin Bammann Karin Bammann 1,2*
  • 1 Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
  • 2 Leibniz Science Campus Digital Public Health Bremen, Bremen, Bremen, Germany
  • 3 Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology - BIPS, Bremen, Bremen, Germany
  • 4 Department for Health Services Research, Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research, University of Bremen, Bremen, Bremen, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Using participatory approaches to design health interventions is promising, and the ongoing digitalization has enabled the development of diverse digital formats for this purpose. These digital formats bring forth distinct advantages and challenges that should be carefully considered. This rapid review aims to present an overview of digital formats employed in participatory health intervention development and their reported benefits and barriers.A qualitative rapid review was conducted, following recommendations by the Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group. The literature search was carried out in October 2022 and encompassed the PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, and Cochrane CENTRAL databases. Studies were included if they were published in 2010 or later and reported the development of a health-related intervention employing digital formats in the participatory process.A total of 22 studies were included. We identified three types of digital formats used for participatory health intervention development: web-based participatory formats (n = 14), digital participatory visual formats (n = 5), and digital participatory mapping (n = 3). The reported benefits of applying digital formats included enhanced participant anonymity, increased time and cost efficiency, and more flexibility regarding scheduling and extent of participation. Among the reported barriers were sufficient internet connectivity, required technical skills, and online fatigue.The review shows a variety of digital formats employed to develop participatory health interventions. Yet, these methods are primarily digital adaptations of pre-existing analog formats. Innovative digital approaches involving, for example, virtual reality devices remain largely unused. The review also revealed a need for establishing shared terminology and reporting standards to facilitate communication, comparison, and synthesis of findings in this evolving area of research.

    Keywords: digital methods, Action research, co-research, Community participation, Public Health, Health Promotion

    Received: 08 Jul 2024; Accepted: 08 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Doerwald, Stalling, Recke, Busse, Shrestha, Rach and Bammann. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Karin Bammann, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.